


Finding Yourself

by Wolfling



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen, Ghost Claudia, Stilinski Family Feels, spoilers up to 4.10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-09
Updated: 2014-09-09
Packaged: 2018-02-16 17:04:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2277768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolfling/pseuds/Wolfling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There were many things she had forgotten, but one thing she never had was the name of her son. Hearing it, seeing <em>him</em> brought the first burst of clarity she'd had in a very long time. She saw him and she knew him and that gave her enough traction that she also remembered herself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finding Yourself

**Author's Note:**

> So the scene in 4.10 with Stiles and Malia getting locked in the hospital room was incredibly cute and I adored it. Ostensibly it was Melissa who locked them in, but the way they shot the door opening at the end of the scene: 
> 
>   
> (gif created by [maliatale on tumblr](http://maliatale.tumblr.com/))
> 
> is just really odd. You would think they would show Melissa opening it, or something like that, instead of it just swinging open apparently on its own. 
> 
> And it may well just be nothing more than an odd editing choice. But what if it wasn't? What if it was shot that way for a reason?
> 
> My brain took that question and the fact that Stiles was supposed to see Claudia when he was in Eichen House last season, along with Jeff Davis saying Eichen House is haunted and came up with this.

She almost didn't recognize him the first time.

She was still deep in the confusion that had clung to her like a cloak for so long,it seemed like she'd always been wrapped in it. And even if she hadn't been, he had grown so much... The boy she remembered was still a child, not the young man that crossed her path now. 

Truthfully, she'd barely even registered his presence at first, just another lost soul like all the others in this lost place. Until he said his name.

There were many things she had forgotten, but one thing she never had was the name of her son. Hearing it, seeing _him_ brought the first burst of clarity she'd had in a very long time. She saw him and she knew him and that gave her enough traction that she also remembered herself. 

For an all too brief time she knew who she was and _what_ she was and how she got where she was. She knew that young man was her son and that he was in trouble. She could see the dark spirit that had its claws sunk into him, got the impression of sharp teeth and sharper tricks, a insatiable need to hurt and rip apart, all of it focused on _her son_.

It awakened something in her that had been just as lost in the confusion as her identity. A need to fight, to defend, to protect her baby boy. And she tried, with everything she had, but the dark spirit was so old and powerful and she had been lost for so long and that it wasn't enough. 

In the end she had to watch her son give in to the spirit, watch its darkness cover his light so completely it might as well have been snuffed out.

It left then and she wanted to follow, wanted to stay with her son even if she couldn't help him, but the spirit was as clever at hiding as it was dark and she didn't know the way. Try as she might she couldn't find it, couldn't find _him_. Finally she had to admit that he was gone beyond her reach. Lost, like so much else had been.

She let herself get lost again then, the mists of confusion so much easier to take than the reality that she had let her son down. Again. The first time she had left him, this time he had been pulled from her reach. Each felt like a failure on her part that she was forever unable to do anything to make up for.

But her son surprised her, just as he always had as a child. He came back, his very presence like a beacon to her. His light no longer dimmed by any dark spirit, it burned her confusion away like the early morning mists.

She was happy to see he wasn't an inmate this time and that he wasn't alone. With her memory once again clearing she recognized the young woman with him as the little red haired girl Stiles had been fixated on as a child. Lydia, that was her name. 

It appeared that he had finally got her to notice him.

There was another young man with them, a deputy, the familiar uniform reminding her of her husband. They seemed to be there to talk to one of the patients, a girl she knew was named Meredith. She knew because Meredith was special. Meredith sometimes seemed able to hear her and the others like her. Sometimes, amidst the worst of the confusion, that was the only way she knew she actually still existed. 

The words from their conversation flowed over her, but didn't really understand what they were talking about. It didn't really matter that much to her because she spent the time just watching her son. The way he moved, his facial expressions, everything. She could so clearly see the boy he had been in the young man in front of her now, much more so than the last time he had been here. This was pure unadulterated Stiles and she felt like she could happily watch him forever. She determined then and there that this time she would go with him when he left.

But that choice was taken away from her by Meredith. The girl _screamed_ and she found herself running, _fleeing_. By the time she gained control and returned the only one in the tiny locked room was Meredith. Her son and the others were gone and she was once again alone, bereft of all connections to who she was.

But unlike before, she didn't let herself sink back into the mire of confusion waiting for her. This time she held on to her sense of self with everything she had, held on and worked determinedly to get even more back. Somehow she knew her son would be back and she wanted to be ready for when that happened. She didn't want to be starting from scratch once again.

And if he didn't return (and part of her thought that would be for the better, now that she was becoming more and more aware of what was going on around her. This was not a good or happy place) then she needed to regain herself even more. Because then she was going to have to leave and try and find him.

But it didn't come to that. He did come back, once again with the little red haired girl -- Lydia -- at his side. Her determination and hard work were paying off by then and she had not only vague recollections but actual concrete memories and knowledge. She had names for people, for Lydia and for Stiles and another one for him as well that she knew he hated and never went by unless forced to. Stiles was what he chose for himself and Stiles was what they had all agreed to use. 

Moreover, she had found her own name again. _Claudia_. That gave her something else to hold onto, something that was not reliant on anything or anyone else, an anchor against the confusion. She would not lose herself again, not when she held onto that.

She knew other things now too. Like the man that Stiles and Lydia were talking to was not a good person. He was very bad in fact, the kind of bad that she did not want anywhere near her son. But as much of her self as she had regained, that was about all she had. She was more of a coherent memory than anything else, she knew. The spirit was willing but the flesh was non-existent. 

That didn't stop her from trying to shove Brunski away from her son when he tasered him. It didn't stop her from trying to grab the syringe full of drugs he was planning on using to kill Stiles and Lydia with. Both attempts were met with as much success as she expected which was _none_ , but still she tried. She couldn't not try.

Thankfully, the calvalry, in the form of the young deputy that had been with Stiles and Lydia the last time they were here, arrived in the nick of time. The deputy quickly cemented himself a place on her list of favourite people by saving Stiles' and Lydia's lives.

Then Meredith was there suddenly and there seemed to be some drama involving her, but Claudia didn't really follow much of it. She was too busy being relieved her son was still alive and clinging to Stiles with all of her non-corporeal strength. She was not going to lose track of him again, especially if this was the kind of shenanigans he was getting up to.

She stayed with him as he and Lydia walked back through the hallways, clinging all the tighter when they reached the entrance and stepped outside. She half expected to be stopped at the threshold, to find herself unable to move beyond it, but that wasn't what happened. Stiles walked outside and she walked with him.

There was a confusing mass of cars with flashing lights and people in various uniforms that they walked right into the middle of it. For Claudia, it was disorienting to say the least, but Stiles seemed to be right at home in it. In fact he seemed to be searching for something...

She figured out what it was at the same time she heard Stiles call out, "Dad!" A few seconds later she got to see her son carefully hug his father.

He, like Stiles, was visibly older, there were more lines on his face and a certain sadness in his eyes she didn't remember being there when she had been ( _alive_ ) with him. But just like Stiles, she was sure she would know him anywhere, no matter how lost she became. 

His right arm was in a sling, hence the care Stiles was taking in hugging him and Claudia found herself worrying about how he acquired it, so much so that she missed their conversation, only realizing it and tuning back in when she heard, "That isn't a suggestion, Stiles!"

The mulish expression on Stiles' face was one that hadn't changed from when he was a child and being told to eat his vegetables or go to bed. His father sighed and gripped the back of his neck. "I need to know that you're all right. Please."

Stiles' expression softened at that. "Fine. I'll go get checked out. Just, y'know, be careful with Meredith. We don't know what else she might try to pull."

"I do know how to do my job. Even with added weird. Go." He gently shoved Stiles in the direction of the paramedics and their ambulance. "If we find out anything, I'll let you know, I promise."

Stiles nodded, moving in to hug his father one more time before heading off to the ambulance.

There was a brief second where Claudia hesitated, unsure which one of her family she should stick with, but in the end she chose Stiles. She needed to see he was all right as much as his father did.

From the moment Stiles set foot in the hospital he was insisting he was fine and trying to walk right back out again. The nurse who finally got him to wait for them to run the appropriate tests was vaguely familiar to Claudia as well and when she heard Stiles call her Melissa she remembered why -- she was the mother of Stiles' childhood best friend. Claudia remembered how she had stepped in to help with Stiles as much as she could when Claudia had been losing her battle against the Confusion. To see that there was still an obvious bond there between the two of them was gratifying.

Stiles settled down after that. Alone in the private exam room he'd been put in to wait for the tests, he sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the cassette tape he was turning over and over in his long fingers. He'd taken it from the crime scene, somehow slipping it out without anyone being any the wiser. Now he stared at it with an expression that Claudia was intimately familiar with seeing on his father's face, when he brought his work home and was puzzling over a case.

Finally though, Stiles sighed and slipped the tape back into his jacket pocket.

"God, I hate hospitals," he muttered. Claudia assumed he was just thinking out loud until his next words took her non-existent breath away. "I wasn't that fond of them before you went and died in one, but that pretty much cemented my dislike for eternity." He wasn't just thinking out loud. He was talking to her.

For a moment Claudia thought he was somehow aware that she was there, but no. The way he stared at the empty chair by the bed as if imagining her sitting there, and the easy way he was talking as if this was something he did often belied that conclusion. He wasn't talking to her because he knew she was there, he was talking to her simply because he wanted to talk to his mom, even if she wasn't there to answer him. 

It made her entire being hurt, and hurt even more when she wondered how many times he'd done this. She wished fervently she could have been there those times, she wished even more that there was some way to let him know she was there now, but if there was she didn't know it. 

What she could do, even if she couldn't let him know she was doing it, was listen to what he wanted to tell her and she threw her whole being into doing just that. There was a lot to listen to. Stiles started out with his hatred of hospitals which segued into his worry about hospital bills and adding any more financial stress to the family. He moved on to worrying about a 'deadpool' and even though they'd found out Meredith was someone called the Benefactor, they didn't know why or if having her in custody would be enough to stop the assassination attempts. Claudia found herself wondering what had been happening in Stiles' life that these were things her teenaged son was worried about instead of things like keeping his grades up or girls.

Just as she thought that though, Stiles did start talking about a girl. The details were decidedly strange, but the gist of it seemed to be that he liked this girl -- Malia -- a lot and that she had liked him, but he kept a secret he shouldn't have kept because he was worried that it would hurt her. Malia had found out and had barely spoken to him since. Stiles knew he had screwed up and he had tried to apologize, but that was difficult when she wouldn't talk to him or see him. 

Stiles' monologue was interrupted by a knock on the door and he quickly turned to face it. Claudia did the same thing. It was Melissa, escorting a visitor for Stiles. When the visitor came into the room and Claudia saw the way her son looked at her, she quickly surmised that this was the girl in question. 

She listened to them make what amounted to small talk (alarming small talk, granted, when it concerned both of them nearly getting killed, but still it had the feeling of small talk), interspersed with long (and longing) looks at each other. Claudia willed her son to give the apology he'd been talking about wanting to give just moments before, but it didn't seem like he was quite able to find the words.

Then Malia was turning to leave and Claudia saw Stiles' face just fall the second she wasn't looking at him any more. Malia didn't seem to be any happier about the situation either, and Claudia wanted to help, wanted to make them talk to each other, wanted to tell them that life was too short not to say all the important things when you had the chance instead of just walking away or being walked away from and Malia put her hand on the door handle and Claudia just thought _No_ and felt a rush of energy leave her.

The door wouldn't open. 

Claudia stared at it in shock as her son came over and tried to open it as well then called for Melissa, assuming she was the one who had locked it somehow.

But Claudia knew it hadn't been Melissa, it had been her. Somehow she had done that with just a thought. Apparently she was more than just a coherent memory after all.

She watched and listened as Stiles turned their discussion over the locked door into the apology that he'd been lamenting not having had the chance to give. The way Malia looked at him told Claudia how this was going to go even before Malia admitted to still liking him and the way Stiles looked at her in return was so much like the way his father used to look at Claudia that it threatened to take her non-existent breath away.

When they kissed, Claudia could feel herself practically beaming. To see her son so obviously give his heart to someone who appreciated it... All she ever wanted was to see her son happy and loved and in that moment that was what she saw.

As the kissing continued though, Claudia came to the conclusion that there were certain aspects of her son being happy and loved that she really didn't need to see. Maybe it was time to see what Stiles' father was up to after all. More things were coming back to her by the moment and she was fairly sure she remembered enough to find her way to the sheriff's station.

And though she was still mostly relegated to being a passive observed, if things continued as they'd begun Claudia was fairly sure that wouldn't always be the case. 

She flicked a thought out at the door as she approached it and it unlatched and opened with an audible click. She gave it a satisfied smile as she passed through it.

It was progress. Today a door. Tomorrow, who knew?

*******

**Author's Note:**

> [My tumblr](http://fwolfling.tumblr.com/) if people want to come say hi.


End file.
